Wounds
by IcyKali
Summary: Guzma goes to visit Lusamine in Kanto so that he can challenge her. They end up having a much-needed conversation. Also features Lillie and takes place after the events of the games.


Guzma met up with Lillie on Route 4 at golden hour. As they approached Cerulean City, he saw the tops of the buildings enveloped in the soft glow of the sun and the river gently flowing alongside the path. He was not impressed. It wasn't much of a city, in his opinion. As soon as he laid eyes on it, he was reminded of Iki Town more than any city he knew. In fact, Guzma thought that Kanto was the least exciting place he'd ever been. Lillie had claimed before he decided to visit the region that the trainers there were strong, but since arriving in Kanto, he had only run into schoolkids.

"So are you the Champion yet?" Guzma asked Lillie as they walked down the grey stone path.

Her eyes went wide. "Oh, no! I only have four badges. It's only been a month, Mr. Guzma."

Guzma squinted down at her. "It didn't take your girlfriend that long to become the Champion of Alola."

Lillie just blushed and pouted in response.

"Forget it. What's the Gym Leader like here, anyway? I'm sick of all these Picnickers! It's no fun beating people down if they're not a challenge!"

Lillie looked down at the path while she walked. "She uses water-type pokémon and is very bold and strong—and Mr. Guzma, you shouldn't say things like you want to 'beat people down' in front of my mother." She stopped in front of a very small house, and glanced at the door before looking back to Guzma. Lillie parted her lips slightly and drew in a breath as if she wanted to elaborate, but she stayed silent.

"No way the president's living in a dumpy shack like this," Guzma muttered to himself. He glared at Lillie. "What's eating you now? And how am I going to challenge her without saying stuff like that first? Why shouldn't I tell her I'll beat her and her pokémon down when it's true?" asked Guzma, annoyed.

"Our house is not dumpy. And you know she's still recovering after—" Lillie was cut off by Guzma suddenly banging on the door with far too much force. Before she could tell him to stop, the door creaked faintly. It slowly opened, revealing Lusamine. Between her high heels and Guzma's slouch, the two of them were about the same height. She stared at Guzma with a dull look in her eyes.

After a few seconds, Guzma started to sweat and could not take her look anymore. "L-Long time no see, ma'am. Look who's here. It's your boy, Guzma!" he said, a bit too loudly even for his taste.

Lusamine smirked just slightly. "Of course, Guzma, I've been expecting you. Come inside and I'll get us some tea." She slipped back inside before he could answer. Guzma frowned and went inside after her. He was willing to endure tea and small talk if that could give him the opportunity to battle against her later. Lillie followed after him and closed the door behind them very softly.

The house was very plain. There was a kitchenette, where Lusamine was boiling water, a bed, a very small dining table, and a bookshelf stuffed full of especially old, thick books. The only decoration was a small potted berry plant. Guzma sat down at the table, where he felt cramped. It was apparent that Lillie and Lusamine did not often have company. Guzma propped up his head with his hands, despite his noticing Lillie shooting him a dirty look when he put his elbows on the tabletop. Lusamine took her time with making the tea—she poured the hot water and ran the tea through the strainer slowly and deliberately. Lusamine's tall, stick-like figure usually made her look imposing, but now she looked more like a frail, poorly-made marionette.

When she finally finished preparing everything, she set out the cups of tea and sat down across from Guzma with a blank smile on her face, a smile that quickly fell when he glared at her. "Did you have to take so long with that? Just take the tea and the water, smash it together and it's done!" he snapped. Lusamine frowned and looked down into her teacup.

"Guzma, no!" Lillie crossed her arms over her chest.

Her mother looked back up and blinked at Lillie before covering her mouth with one hand and laughing. "Oh ho ho, you always were so impatient, Guzma. Tell me, what have you been up to?"

"I've been training to become even bigger and badder!" Guzma grinned. "I'm stronger than you now, ma'am, and I came here to prove it."

"Oh, so you think you can defeat me? I wouldn't count on it... I've had to keep training now that Lillie's going off on her own journey, you know," said Lusamine.

Lillie looked between the two of them before she smiled softly. "Mother, Mr. Guzma, I'm going to Fly to Celadon City to pick up a few things. Please remember not to battle inside the house!" Lillie walked to the door.

"You're sounding like the mother now, Lillie... don't worry, we'll be good," said Lusamine. Guzma rolled his eyes.

Lillie nodded as she left.

"So first of all, I caught and trained a ton of powerful pokémon—Liepard, Toxicroak, Scizor, Bisharp, and Toxapex," said Guzma.

"Only one new bug-type?" asked Lusamine.

"Yeah, well, I'm already the toughest bug-type trainer, and that's not enough for me." Guzma didn't mention the way that he had failed against Hala and the Champion with only his bug-types.

"That makes sense... diversifying your team is important. Why only capture pokémon of one type when there are so many beautiful pokémon of all types? Unless you're training to become a Gym Leader or some such thing." Lusamine looked thoughtful. "That wouldn't be a bad profession for you, in fact. The Gym Leaders in this region are very prestigious, and I know how much you crave prestige."

"Gym Leader? I'm aiming higher than that!" In truth, Guzma hadn't been thinking of what to do with the battling abilities he'd been honing. "But I'll think about it if it sounds good to you, ma'am."

Lusamine looked surprised. "Thank you?" She paused to sip her tea. "Oh, and Guzma, you don't need to call me 'ma'am' anymore."

"Why not?"

She crossed her legs. "There's simply no need to now, after—there's no need to call me anything other than Lusamine."

Guzma eyed her suspiciously. "Yeah... okay. Lusamine," he added awkwardly.

She nodded. "Also, it's good that you caught a Toxapex. That's one fewer Toxapex putting Corsola in danger."

"Huh, I never thought about it like that. But you never actually cared about the environment or sick pokémon or any of the stuff you said you did, right? So why are you thinking about it now?"

Lusamine choked on her tea. "W-Well, I am still an environmental scientist at heart... even though. Ah." She did not finish her explanation.

Guzma was quiet for a while before he unceremoniously took his cup of tea, tilted his head back, and guzzled the entire cup in one sip. He set it back down on the table, hard. "But I didn't come here to catch up, I came here to battle you."

Lusamine paused before speaking with a melancholy expression on her face before she shook her head and forced a grin. "Of course you did. I hope you came to lose, as well."

Guzma grinned back at her. "No, I can't say I came for that. And it's no problem since there's no chance of that happening." Guzma stood up, shoved the chair away from him, and crossed his arms. "I need to beat you and then beat that creepy upstart kid who became Champion! I told her that the next time she steps to me, I'll skip her pokémon and beat her black and blue directly, but I want to beat her pokémon as well!"

Lusamine stood up as well, still moving slowly and deliberately. Her gaze became glassy and dull once again. "Ugh, Guzma, what an awful thing to say to such a young trainer."

"What do you mean, awful?" Guzma asked, annoyed. "Didn't you beat _your_ kids?"

Lusamine's eyes widened and she looked off in the direction of the door, lost in thought. "I never... beat them." Lusamine clenched her hands into tight fists. Her arms were tense and shaking slightly.

"But you did something nasty to them, yeah? Something much worse than pummeling them?"

Lusamine's frown twisted into a scowl. She snapped her head back to look Guzma dead in the eyes. "Why would you come all the way to Kanto just to make these horrible accusations?!"

"They're not accusations if they're true." Guzma shrugged a bit. "We all know what you did. Why're you so mad all of a sudden?"

Lusamine dashed across the room and stopped in front of Guzma. She pointed at him by jabbing a finger at his chest. The dangerous gleam in her eyes, which had been missing since she had been separated from Nihilego, returned. "I can't believe how foolish I was, thinking that this time it would be different—thinking you were different from everyone else! Now I see who you really are, and I am sick of it!" she yelled. "Why couldn't you just follow my lead?! If you had done that, everything would have turned out perfectly! Why are you not listening to me?!"

Guzma leaned away from her touch. "You're not making any sense! You sound like you did when you were possessed by that Beast!"

Suddenly the door swung open. When Lillie saw the scene before her she cringed and covered her mouth with her hands in shock. "Mother, why are you so angry? Mr. Guzma, what did you do?!"

Lusamine did not even seem to notice her daughter. She smirked at the mention of the Ultra Beast. "Oh yes, I almost forgot the feeling of my beautiful Beast, so sweet... unlike you!" she shouted into Guzma's face. "I should have left you as a dirty thug on the street instead of ever taking you in, Guzma, because that's exactly where _trash_ like you belongs!"

No one spoke. Lillie stood quivering in the doorway with tears in her eyes. Guzma's brows furrowed. He stood staring into Lusamine's eyes for a few seconds. He reached out and grabbed her left shoulder roughly. When Lusamine tried to jerk out of his grasp, he took the opportunity to pull his other arm back. He growled and swung his arm forward and punched her in the nose, hard. Lusamine immediately yelled in pain and covered her face with her hands. She reeled back, unsteady on her feet, before regaining her balance and lifting one leg into the air. Guzma prepared himself to block a kick, but Lusamine instead slammed her leg back down and crushed his left foot under her high heel. The _crunch_ reverberated throughout the room. Guzma screamed and fell to the floor. Lusamine stood over him, shaking in disbelief as blood from her broken nose poured into her hands.

Lillie rushed into the house and threw a Poké Ball. "Blissey, help me!" she yelled as her pokémon appeared with a flash. "Blissey, use—" her command was cut off when Lusamine turned and ran out the door, shoving Lillie and Lillie's pokémon aside.

"Mother, come back! You're bleeding!" Lillie called after her. Lusamine kept running until she was out of sight. "No..." Lillie mumbled, defeated.

Guzma writhed on the floor. "What are you doing?! Get your pokémon to help me already!" he snapped.

Lillie nodded. She wiped her tears away. "Blissey, use Heal Pulse on Mr. Guzma." Blissey took a few steps toward Guzma, and shuddered with empathy. It closed its eyes and began to glow a soft pink. When the glow became warm and intense, Blissey directed it to Guzma and it washed over him like a wave. It eventually dissipated, leaving Guzma's foot completely healed. Blissey took an Egg out of its pocket and offered it to Guzma, who shook his head. Blissey put it back with a dejected look on its face.

"Don't look at me like that," Guzma muttered. "I heard eating those makes people feel nice and happy—and I have to stay angry! What the hell happened to Lusamine?!"

Lillie recalled her Blissey and sighed. "I want you to explain what you said to her before I came in, Mr. Guzma."

Guzma stood up and tried putting weight on his foot. He did not feel any pain. "So you're saying it's my fault she said those things and broke my foot?! I'm not the bad guy here!"

"Explain it right now, Mr. Guzma."

"You're such a brat. Maybe you're the one I should be beating up," he muttered. "All I did was mention some of the bad things she did, like hurting you and your brother and fusing with that Beast, and she just snapped!"

"You brought that up?!" Lillie almost shrieked. "Why?!"

"I don't know! It just came up! Besides, it's not like she doesn't know about what she did, right? Why can't she just accept that it happened?" He paused, then spoke in a softer voice. "Wait... did she ever even say she was sorry about what she did to you?"

Lillie's eyes widened and she frowned. "She—you know what, Mr. Guzma? You've done enough damage for one day. I'm going to go find my mother, and you're going to stay right here in Cerulean City until I bring her back and get you both to apologize for what happened here. She can't have gone far without a pokémon that knows Fly..." She turned and left without saying another word.

"What's wrong with kids? Even they're telling me what to do?" Guzma muttered to himself.

He left the house soon after Lillie left. The sun had nearly set, and the golden glow over everything was gone, replaced with cold blue tinge. He walked for a while back down the path he had taken into the city, when something caught his eye. He saw some object near the river, shimmering in the last light of the sun. He ran up to it and picked it up—it was a pink and blue scale. "Huh, wonder how much this is worth..." Guzma trailed off as his eyes widened in realization. He looked up, and noticed that on the other side of the river, there was a cave inside the low cliffs that surrounded the city. Guzma grinned, thankful that his Toxapex knew the move Surf. "Wait until that brat sees that the big bad Guzma can fix things as well as break 'em!" he said to himself.

After surfing across the river, he stood outside the cave and squinted into it, but he could not see anything from outside. He then rushed in. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opened them again he had adjusted to the darkness and the cold, damp atmosphere. He found Lusamine quickly. She was sitting in an unnatural position against a large cluster of blue crystals, on the edge of a deep pool of water that was not far from the cave entrance. As Guzma got closer to her, he noticed that her long hair was hiding her body like she was a Cloyster with its shell closed up. The ends of her hair were trailing in the dirty water of the pool. Guzma crouched down beside her, and Lusamine did not visibly react.

Guzma waited for her to say something, but she refused to speak. He broke the tense silence himself by clearing his throat. "Hey, Lusamine, aren't you tired of your hands being sticky with blood? How about we just say sorry, go back to your dumpy house, and get the Blissey to fix up your nose like it fixed my foot?" he asked in a softer tone than usual.

"...Why did it take so long for you to finally become angry at me?" Lusamine asked, her voice hoarse.

"What? I think I got mad at you pretty quick after you called me trash and broke my foot!"

Lusamine looked away from him and into the pool. "I'm not talking about today, Guzma."

"I don't understand. I mean, you hurt your kids and almost all of Alola, but you never hurt me till today."

She suddenly turned her head toward him, her hands still covering her nose. Guzma felt the sting of guilt when he saw that she had two bad black eyes. "Do I need to spell it out for you?! Think, Guzma. I know you aren't stupid!" she snapped.

He stared at her in silence as he tried to think back to their last few interactions. He tried to remember if she had hurt him in the past, but could not. "...I'm not stupid, I'll give you that. But I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Trying to keep you in Ultra Space!" Lusamine smacked the surface of the water, hard. The ripples traveled into the darkness. "When Lillie asked me if I cared about you, I couldn't even answer her! How can you not remember?!"

Guzma did not flinch. "That was the best I could hope for, right? If you'd said 'yes' it would've been a lie like everything you said, and if you'd said 'no' you would've meant that. And besides, you took me there because I was one of the things you liked. You said you wanted to surround yourself with only the stuff you loved or something like that... and you definitely didn't ask me to go with you because you needed help capturing the Beast. If I was one of the things you wanted with you, that's more credit than I've ever gotten! You've still been better to me than anybody else about your age."

"That that was the best you could have hoped for from me might be true, but you deserve more than that." Lusamine's eyes looked more dull than ever. "That does not excuse—wait, what do you mean by 'better?' Trying to force you to stay in Ultra Space and letting you get possessed against your will were both terrible, Guzma!"

Guzma let himself fall backward and lie down. He put his arms under his head—he had a feeling that he would be in the cave for a while. "It's way better than ignoring me like the Kahunas did or beating me black and blue like my old man used to."

"Your father beat you black and blue?" Lusamine asked, her voice becoming more hoarse. "And then I tried to collect you and order you to do what I wanted while I still manipulated my own, poor children?" Lusamine bent over and covered her entire face with her bloodied hands as more of her hair fell into the water. She let out a low keening sound.

Guzma blushed slightly. "Don't you dare think I'm weak!" he snapped as he looked up at the distant ceiling of the cave. "He stopped that as soon as I returned the favor with some golf clubs!" He sighed. "Besides, that's not important. Just say you're sorry if you feel bad about it, and then tell Lillie you're sorry. Why haven't you done that already instead of sitting around and sulking?"

"It is not that simple," Lusamine muttered. "I've been this way since—apologizing will not fix any of this!"

Guzma raised an eyebrow. "You've been this way since when?"

"Don't you know enough to know not to pry?" She leaned even closer to the water.

"Don't blame me for wondering why it's easier for you to take a punch in the nose than it is to say you're sorry!" Guzma rolled over onto his side. "Also, you'd better show me your nose. You really shouldn't have run off like that—what if it's really bad?"

"Then it's what I deserve," she said softly.

"Even if that's true, you don't deserve to bleed out and die... we can agree on that, right? Actually, don't answer that."

Lusamine took a few deep breaths before straightening up and leaning back against the crystals again. Her hair was weighed down and dripping with dark, dirty water. She slowly removed her hands from her face and turned toward Guzma again. Her nose was swollen and caked with dried blood and fluid.

"It's puffy but not that crooked, and the bleeding's stopped," said Guzma. "I've had my nose broken before and I think it'll be all right—just get Blissey to fix it. You might need it set first or something, though. I don't get how pokémon HP translates into human health."

"Blissey's Heal Pulse is what you mean, isn't it? It heals fifty percent of a pokémon's HP, and they face far more than punches to the face in battle. It should heal it completely." Lusamine looked back to the water, and then into the distance. There was not enough light to see the other walls of the cave. She kept staring for a while, watching as everything became even harder to see. The clusters of crystals lost their shine. Eventually, she spoke again. "I thought you would have left by now, considering how impatient you are."

Guzma yawned theatrically. "I can just take a nap till you're ready to talk!"

Lusamine laughed and the sound echoed throughout the cave. She stretched her legs and dipped the toes of her boots into the pool. She shivered slightly and crossed her arms over her chest, but she did not take her feet out of the water. "It's been this way... I've been this way since my husband disappeared into Ultra Space. He was the first one to truly research them—the Ultra Beasts. One day, during one of our experiments to open a portal to the other dimension, something went wrong. I still don't know why it happened the way it did, but almost as soon as the portal opened, he was simply... gone."

Lusamine swallowed hard. "After that day, I just kept thinking to myself that it was my fault for not keeping things under control. I thought that if I just opened the portal enough times, if I completed his research, I would be able to see him! When it became clear that that wouldn't happen, I thought that I could replace him, that I didn't need him again. All that mattered was the Ultra Beasts, and that maybe if I developed a way to capture them and control them, I wouldn't feel the pain anymore. I applied this idea to everything in my life... to pokémon and even to my own poor children. I went too far with my experiments... I hurt so many people and pokémon... you know everything else." Her black eyes looked even darker, and she was too tired to cry. "Sometimes I wonder if it was not an accident that my husband disappeared. What if it was all my fault? What if I was always this way, so that even the other dimension was more appealing than I was? What if I was poised to tear my family apart from the beginning?"

Guzma sat up. "That's all stupid!"

Lusamine immediately turned her head toward him. "What," she said flatly. Her eyes were wide and her teeth were bared.

"If your husband left on purpose, then that was a dirty move on his part as well! He wasn't just running out on you, but his kids as well! And you've got to be able to see what's dumb about the rest of it. Becoming obsessed with the Beasts and hurting your kids and their pokémon right after their father disappeared was never gonna help you! It was just gonna make you feel even worse after you came to your senses!" Guzma spread his arms wide. "Now I see you have to apologize even more than I thought!" He pushed himself up to his feet and cracked his back. He pointed down at Lusamine. "You know what? It's time you listened to your boy Guzma instead of ordering everybody else around. First you're going to get up off your ass and end this pity party. Then you're going to tell me you're sorry to get that off your chest, and then you're going to go and tell Lillie you're sorry. I bet she's worried sick about you right now! Got it?!"

Lusamine scowled and looked up at him. "How can you say something insensitive as that after what I just shared with you?! Maybe you really are trash! You've been nothing but rude to me all day! I told you, this is not that simple! An apology is not going to fix anything!" she shouted.

"Well it'd be a start! Sitting around and feeling bad isn't going to fix anything either, but you've been doing nothing but that!" Guzma sighed. "Look, if it'll make it easier, I'll go first. Lusamine, I'm sorry I acted like a jerk, and I'm sorry I busted your nose. Now you go."

Lusamine looked up at him. Her lips parted, but she said nothing. She drew her legs out of the water and stood up so she could looks Guzma in the face. But a few seconds later she turned away and looked down again. She closed her eyes and frowned.

Guzma frowned back at her. He turned around but not so far that he could not see her out of the corner of his eye. He walked back towards the cave's entrance, made visible by the faint light from the faraway streetlights.

Lusamine stood frozen in place. Just as Guzma stepped into the light, she cried out. "Wait!" she screamed, loud enough that her voice made Golbat screech deeper in the cave. Her shout echoed. "I can't bear to see you go, not now!" She ran toward the entrance, nearly slipping due to her wet boots. She stopped in front of Guzma, and he turned around to look her in the eyes.

"Yeah? What is it?" he asked.

"I've been a failure for so long, and I've failed you so many times—from the first time I met you and tried to control you to make myself feel more powerful, to when I tried to force you to stay with me in Ultra Space, to when I let you get possessed... I apologize. For everything. The reason I wanted you to visit me today... the actual reason... it was because I wanted to make amends. I truly did. But apparently I can't even bring myself to do that." She looked down at her feet.

Guzma grinned. "Really? 'Cause it sounds like you just did." He held out his hand, much to Lusamine's surprise. She managed to smirk before shaking his hand and squeezing it lightly.

The two of them left the cave, had their respective pokémon use Surf in order to cross the river, and traveled back to the path, whose grey stonework was illuminated by the soft orange glow of the streetlights and the blue light of the bright moon. They took their time walking back to Lusamine's and Lillie's house. Once they reached it, they stood outside, waiting for Lillie to spot them. It was only a few minutes before they heard the loud cry of a pokémon reverberate from the sky and throughout the city. Lillie swooped down from the night sky riding a Mega Pidgeot.

Lillie didn't even bother to recall her pokémon before running up to Lusamine and nearly pulling her into a hug. Lillie stopped at the last second. "M-Mother—your eyes, your hair, your nose, your hands—are you all right?! What happened?! Where were you?!" Lillie stared at Lusamine's bloodstained hands for a moment before processing that her mother was also holding hands with Guzma, who didn't seem bothered by the blood."Wait... did you find her, Mr. Guzma? Where was she? Have you two forgiven each other?" Lillie asked.

Guzma pointed in the direction of Cerulean Cave and Lillie blanched. "Mother, why did you go into Cerulean Cave?! It's dangerous!" She took out a Poké Ball and withdrew her pokémon. "Just tell me that you're all right, please..."

Lusamine smiled softly. "Yes, Lillie. In fact, I feel better than I have in a very long time." Her smile fell and she bit her lip before continuing. "Lillie, I apologize for running off and hiding. It was terribly irresponsible of me, and I was too focused on myself to remember how upset it would make you. And..." She glanced at Guzma, who nodded. "...and I also need to apologize for everything else I did to you, your brother, and everyone else before I was separated from Nihil-Nihilego." Her voice cracked on the name of the Ultra Beast. "I should have told you this long before we ever came to this region. I'm sorry. I know that an apology is not enough, but—"

Lillie held up one hand. "I'm glad to hear this, mother, but it's late and I'm just feeling exhausted," she said quietly. "Why don't you wash your hands and nose and I'll send out Blissey and have it heal you up the way it healed Mr. Guzma." Lillie went back inside without waiting for an answer, but not before smiling tiredly at her mother and Guzma.

"She is such a beautiful, sweet, strong young woman," Lusamine said in awe. She opened the door for Guzma. "Come inside... I don't know how to even begin to thank you, Guzma," she said quietly.

"Aw, you're welc—wait!" Guzma snapped. "You can begin to thank me by finally giving me that battle! The battle I can't believe I still haven't had yet! Can't we just have it right here in the street after you get cleaned and fixed up?"

Lusamine laughed loudly and clearly.

THE END


End file.
